In Vietnam, the application of the circular economy associated with sustainable development and green growth is paying more attention in recent years. In particular, the content of building a circular economy has been identified at the 13th National Party Congress Resolution as one of the national development orientations in the period of 2021-2030 to achieve the goals of sustainable development.
- Sustainable economic development
Sustainable economic development is understood as fast, safe, and high-quality growth in all aspects of the economy (such as output scale, progress in economic structure,...). To achieve sustainable economic development, it is necessary to: (1) The economy has high GDP growth and high GDP per capita. In the current conditions, the developed countries need GDP growth of about 5%/year to be considered to have signs of sustainable economic development; (2) the GDP structure is also a criterion for assessing sustainable economic development; only when the proportion of industry and services in GDP structure is higher than the proportion of agriculture, the economy can achieve the sustainable development; (3) the economic growth must be one with high efficiency, do not accept growth at all costs.
- Current status of Vietnamese economic development
Evaluated by the criteria and target orientation of sustainable economic development in the period of 2016 - 2020 in Vietnam, there are many indicators of the 5-year average economic growth rate, the economy restructures, as well as better control of public debt... showing that Vietnam has basically achieved sustainable economic growth.
+ About the growth quality: There is no mutual agreement between the development scale and the growth quality. The economic growth is at a high rate, but the economy is still dependent on foreign direct investment capital and lacks sustainability. In fact, the gross domestic product (GDP) has not been calculated correctly and has not accounted for all accompanying costs in the process of production, business, and growth. The green economy (green GDP) has also not been used in measuring development.
+ About the public debt management: This is a common problem in many countries because the tax revenue exceeds government spending. Among the indicators for assessing sustainable economic development, the public debt indicator is an important one. Public debt needs to be controlled by the government to ensure a safe threshold for economic stability and development.
+ About the social labor productivity: In recent years, although labor productivity growth has recovered and increased rapidly, Vietnamese labor productivity is still at a low level compared to many ASEAN countries due to the small size of the economy, the low beginning point, the economic restructuring process in a positive direction, but still slow development. Therefore, GDP growth in the direction of increasing labor productivity is a big challenge, but a necessary factor to create high, sustainable growth and improve the competitiveness of the Vietnamese economy.
+ About the natural resources management and use: The management of natural resources in Vietnam still has many weaknesses, and inefficiencies, especially land and water resources, some types of resources are over-exploited which causes degradation and depletion. Environmental pollution continuously increases, especially in urban areas and big cities, greatly affecting people's lives and activities, and becoming a social problem.
+ About the investment management: The things which Vietnam needs to do now is to improve the quality and efficiency of investment, including the one of the state budget. The wasteful loss in public investment is still complicated and it is necessary to overcome these problems. The allocation of investment capital has not complied with regulations, such as the allocation of the capital to projects not meeting the principles and criteria, the spreading to many projects, and the longer time than the regulations.
+ About the market development policy: The State has regulations on market expansion and development, but the output market for domestically produced products is still unstable. The devaluation season takes place for many years. The market policy is still weak, and heavily dependent on some markets, affecting domestic production and business, such as agricultural products and the dependence on the Chinese market; the lack of processing plants to increase the value of agricultural products; the low competitiveness of manufactured products making it difficult to join the global value chain.
- Some solutions to quickly and sustainably develop the circular economy in Vietnam
- Transform the growth model from a large-scale one to a deep one; clarify issues of economic theory and provide specific instructions for the economic management process; implement green growth strategy; save and use energy efficiently; develop clean energy, and renewable energy to ensure national energy security.
- Widely apply cleaner production to improve the efficiency of national resource use; combine sectoral management with local and territorial management to effectively exploit and use resources.
- Prioritize the development of key economic regions, and simultaneously pay attention to less developed areas to create balanced development.
- Improve growth quality, and ensure macroeconomic stability, especially financial and monetary policies.
- Establish a healthy and fair competitive business investment environment; select good factors for the economy with effective investments and businesses, eliminate weak business organizations; overcome obstacles in the process of implementing Law on Public Investment; ensure the consistency of the legal system and remove difficulties for ministries, branches, and localities.
- Carry out policies to ensure fairness in access to resources and development, create motivation for production and business; promote the role of people's supervision in the management of natural resources, environment, and enterprise activities.
- Review and remove barriers to market participation, and supplement policies to support new industries; encourage investment, especially ones in the development of socio-economic infrastructure, production, and business; reduce costs, and improve labor productivity and product quality; use tax policies and economic levers; encourage exports, and reduce the proportion of imports exceeding exports.
- Set priority from multinational enterprises to local small and medium-sized enterprises; develop and support domestic small and medium enterprises to expand to international markets.
- Step up administrative reform, raise the operational efficiency of state apparatus, fight against corruption and waste, practice thrift; strengthen international economic cooperation and integration; improve information quality.
- Train and improve professional capacity, organizational culture, behavior, and labor discipline for employees; rebuild the policy of salary, bonus and take care of cultural and spiritual life to create motivation for people.
- Concentrate resources to invest in strongly developing science and technology enterprises, renewing the scientific management mechanism and taking advantage of the exploitation and application of technology from developed countries...
- Conduct international cooperation in policy-making and "green economy" creation in Vietnam; mobilize international support resources, especially the investment capital of 2% global GDP value for the "green economy” development.
In the current context of Vietnam, circular economy development is the right choice for a sustainable economy. In the circular economy model, the most important and decisive factor is science - technology. Therefore, it is essential to innovate and use the knowledge economy to bring efficiency and benefits to everyone. The Vietnamese economy will connect all people from the progress of production, and consumption to the progress of recycling and reusing ones./.